ONS-ArcticJunkYard-V3m
By Mailbox
ONS-ArcticJunkYard (all prev. versions) by Turbo_K
An edit of ONS-DesertJunkYard by Josh "DeadMan" Lambeth, later edits by Turbo_K

Thanks to The Wrecking Crew and analog for testing my map!
Special thanks to Turbo_K for gracing this edit, Lagzilla for testing earlier versions of this edit, and Blackwood for giving me the final push to finish this edit.

General Changes

* Added a new minimap image, replacing the holdover from DesertJunkYard.
* Expanded the 9 lane to be similar in size to the 3 lane.
* Moved the 9 pillars slightly to block shots from 7.
* Moved two glaciers typically used for Tiamat camping much closer to 3/9.
* Your team's Min)o(taur is now tracked on the minimap.
* All fences from 6/7/8/10 have been removed so that Ion and Railgun tanks can't stick their cannon through them.

Fences at 7/10 have been replaced with half-cylinders.

* Modified geometry at 6 so that 3 can't be shot with relative safety.
* Spaced out the vehicles at the powercores so it's easier to get into a particular vehicle.
* Added FlyingPathNodes so that the AI can use fliers.
* Added a throne somewhere.
* Removed some objects that were under the map, as well as some other debris at 10.
* Updated map description and scoreboard map name.

Pickup Changes

* Minigun ammo at all lockers reduced from 300 to 150.
* Added two health pack spawners to all nodes except 3/9.
* Keg o' Health spawners at 1/2 and 4/5 have been replaced with Shield Pack spawners.

Vehicle Changes

* This map uses special spawners from Crusha K. Rool's UltimateMappingTools for the Ion and Railgun tanks. Now, they will only spawn if the node is on your team's side of the map (i.e. closer to your core than the enemy team's). This is so that a team will never have more than one Ion Tank and one Railgun Tank, unless they hijack one that the enemy team got into.
* All Badger MkIIs have been replaced with regular Badgers.

-Powercore

* The Tiamat has been replaced with a Leviathan.

The Leviathan has a 180 second respawn time (the Tiamat's was 240 seconds).

* The Hoverbadger MkII has been replaced with a Sting Ray on a 45 second respawn timer.
* Re-added the Stealth Badger on a 30 second respawn timer.
* Alligator respawn time reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds (-30s).

If people have played games with me, than they know that I complain pretty often about maps and tactics that I don't like. ArcticJunkYard (AJY) has been a map I've disliked for a while, ever since AJY-V3 was released. My main issue was that between V2 and V3, the Badger went from being slightly overpowered to a motorized coffin. The pitiful minigun damage against vehicles on a vehicle-centric map like this one meant that it was very hard to kill a vehicle or get to a node before dying. That, combined with the Goliaths getting buffed (and rightfully so), the Badger had very little use. So one day I figured: Instead of complaining about this map until the end of time, why don't I just edit the map and fix the problems I have with it? And with that thought came this AJY edit.

Changing the Badgers was the one of the first things I did, so that it can once again be a threat to squishy fast movers and slow tracking vehicles like Ions and Levis. This does mean that there are a lot more threats for a Wasp though, so I'll be seeing if there is something that should be done on that front.

Another issue, one that is shared with DesertJunkYard (DJY), is that fights between 1/2 and 7/10 boil down to whether the Ion Tank can one shot the primary, or if the reincarnating Fire Tank can eventually take 7/10 down. To me, these are pretty stale tactics, and most of the other vehicles from these nodes don't have much of an impact in that situation. So this edit will increase the Fire Tank respawn time and remove the Ion Tank from offensive primary attacks. This will hopefully open up more diverse strategies at these connections.

One of the unique features of AJY is the fact that it has a Tiamat instead of a nuke tank. But from my experience, it's either not used or single-handedly shuts down an entire team with only one person in it. Tanks are too slow and too far away to do shoot the Tiamat, fast movers can get lasered down by the Tiamat, and a Badger MkII can kill the Tiamat after 2 minutes of continuous machine gun fire. Several changes were made to rein in the Tiamat's power. It has been downgraded to a Leviathan so it no longer has an effective AA option. A glacier typically used to camp & spam 7/10 as well as top mid with relative safety has been moved much closer to the center, so campers will be in a more vulnerable position. Lastly, a 1-person Badger is an actual threat again, reducing the necessity of Manta variants and Wasps to reach the Levi. With these changes, a team will now have to play around their Levi and protect it to leverage its massive area denial effects.

Another problem I see with vehicle centric maps in general is that once a team gets a large amount of map control, it is extremely hard for the other team to come back, simply because the other team has more vehicles. For example, in SlatedWorld-BigAl-V2, once a team loses their 7/9 primary, the round is over right there, simply because the losing team will never have enough fliers to fight from then on. To help fight the vehicle imbalance factor on AJY, several vehicles in the middle nodes are getting their respawn timers increased. This, combined with a team only getting one Ion Tank and one Railgun Tank under normal circumstances, will make it easier for a team to come back from behind, and not have to suffer being imprisoned to their core as much.

Despite the changelog being somewhat sizable, I titled this version V3m, as I don't feel like I've made enough changes to warrant considering it a completely new version. If I'm the one who ends up making AJY-V4, I'd like to look at replacing the power nodes with the new versions that can have larger size health bars, mix up the vehicle variety, deal with mountain camping, add some jump pads, and possibly remove the Wave Flack.

This is the first map edit I've ever made, so I suggested to analog to keep this version and V3 together on the server for around a week. That way, in case the gameplay on this edit is bad, it can quickly be pulled out, or simply ignored in favor of V3 by voters. It also allows an easier compare/contrast experience for people that want to feel out what's changed for themselves.

Post-Release Commentary

The map has been on the server since this past Friday, May 4th. I wasn't able to get this thread made because I was pretty busy, but I was able to spectate through a complete match on this map (here (archive)).

The Tiamat nerf definitely worked as intended, although it might have been nerfed too hard. The large amount of mantas and fliers that a team has at their disposal means that the Levi will eventually be whittled down. I'll need to play some matches to see if the Levi can find its place through a change of strategy, or if it needs to be propped up a bit.

The match I spectated featured a Cobra camping the 7/8 mountain, raining tank shells down on 8 with relative safety. There isn't much counterplay to that aside from taking a flier/manta and stinging it down. If I iterate on this version, I might change the geometry of the mountain, add a pain zone at the mountaintops, or point some orbital ion cannons at those peaks.

There's definitely more to talk about this edit. One of the server regulars stated that "everything" had changed with this edit, in contrast to my feeling that not enough had changed for it to be V4. I'll be looking forward to hearing what people think of the map. There will also be a poll in the coming days whether to keep this version or V3 on the server.

Enjoy the map everyone!

EDIT: On November 23rd, 2018, an update was released for this map, ONS-ArcticJunkYard-V3m-Beta11. The changelog is listed below:

ONS-ArcticJunkYard-V3m-Beta11 (a.k.a. ONS-ArcticJunkYard-V3m-fix)

* Prospective fix to a bug where Ion Tanks and Railgun Tanks were not spawning at all.

* This was likely because I had raised the bUseStaticTeams flag, which assumes that only certain team IDs will be used (0 and 1). This assumption works fine in local play, but falls flat in netplay, as Wormbo's Even Match mutator moves around the team IDs.

* Extended ramp near the Powercore spawns to dissuade vehicle spawn killing.
* Lowered the cylinders at 7/10 to eliminate the gap that existed under them.
* Painting pass on node 6 so that it looks a bit better.
* Moved node 3 a slight bit and got rid of its vertical slant.
* Reoriented the slabs atop the twin pillars at 3 and 9.

Not only you invested the time to fix many issues with the map, which I love. You also put together one hell of a detailed change log. I have a fetish for change logs and love learning about all of the work and thought that went into something.

Thanks Mailbox and nice work! This map is soooooo much better now, nice to have useful badgers back. And agree with your edits on the ion/fire tank, that back and forth with an instant respawn fire tank was stupid.

I do like the badger change...Wasps were too powerful in the hands of some...

I also do like the ability to climb the hills, its one of the DJY changes I didn't like...that being said, it does make hill control a strategic advantage, but can be to over powering with a hidden cobra. I think a simple solution would be jump pads at 7/10 to allow infantry to get to the top of the hill to take out hill campers.

It is now much easier to land a mino shot on the enemy's core spawnpoint. All you need to do is nick one vehicle and the whole platform goes up in smoke. This could be especially frustrating for the losing team.

It is now much easier to land a mino shot on the enemy's core spawnpoint. All you need to do is nick one vehicle and the whole platform goes up in smoke. This could be especially frustrating for the losing team.

Perhaps bring the lip of the platform back but make it smoother?

That sounds like a good idea. The AI has trouble pathing over that little slope, which was why I was tepid about extending it when the core island was expanded. Let me get in contact with analog to get the ultimatum poll going for this edit. If that passes, I'd be happy to put that change in for the next version.

Just necroing this thread to say that there are a few bugs with this map since its release, most exclusive to netplay.

First, a critical bug is occurring where the ion tanks and railgun tanks are not spawning at all, as opposed to when only spawning when one team owns a node. This has occurred several times, and seems to happen more often than not. I hypothesize this has to do with Wormbo's FairTeams mutator mixing up the team ID, which CKR's Ultimate vehicle spawners use to determine if a vehicle should trigger. Oddly, this does not occur for the Min)o(taur, despite using the same actor, casting doubt on this previous hypothesis.

Secondly, I left a gap under one of the cylinders near 10, which I'll have to fill in.

Lastly, the Minotaur minimap icon is supposed to be rotated 180 degrees (it points in the opposite direction currently). I think this is due to the relevant parameter from the ultimate vehicle spawner not being relayed to clients. It works fine when playing it locally.

I'll be sure to fix up these things after I get to my Grit edit! If there's other issues or suggestions that other people have, feel free to bring them up!

Just necroing this thread to say that there are a few bugs with this map since its release, most exclusive to netplay.

First, a critical bug is occurring where the ion tanks and railgun tanks are not spawning at all, as opposed to when only spawning when one team owns a node. This has occurred several times, and seems to happen more often than not. I hypothesize this has to do with Wormbo's FairTeams mutator mixing up the team ID, which CKR's Ultimate vehicle spawners use to determine if a vehicle should trigger. Oddly, this does not occur for the Min)o(taur, despite using the same actor, casting doubt on this previous hypothesis.

Secondly, I left a gap under one of the cylinders near 10, which I'll have to fill in.

Lastly, the Minotaur minimap icon is supposed to be rotated 180 degrees (it points in the opposite direction currently). I think this is due to the relevant parameter from the ultimate vehicle spawner not being relayed to clients. It works fine when playing it locally.

I'll be sure to fix up these things after I get to my Grit edit! If there's other issues or suggestions that other people have, feel free to bring them up!

lol... I thought you had just taken the ion/rail tanks out. Didn't realize they were supposed to be there at all on this version.

A bugfix update to ONS-ArcticJunkYard-V3m has been released. The changelog is listed below:

ONS-ArcticJunkYard-V3m-Beta11 (a.k.a. ONS-ArcticJunkYard-V3m-fix)

Changes:
* Prospective fix to a bug where Ion Tanks and Railgun Tanks were not spawning at all.

* This was likely because I had raised the bUseStaticTeams flag, which assumes that only certain team IDs will be used (0 and 1). This assumption works fine in local play, but falls flat in netplay, as Wormbo's Even Match mutator moves around the team IDs.

* Extended ramp near the Powercore spawns to dissuade vehicle spawn killing.
* Lowered the cylinders at 7/10 to eliminate the gap that existed under them.
* Painting pass on node 6 so that it looks a bit better.
* Moved node 3 a slight bit and got rid of its vertical slant.
* Reoriented the slabs atop the twin pillars at 3 and 9.

With the Ion and Railgun tanks spawning as they were supposed to in the original release, hopefully this map will play better now.

Haven't played the new update yet, but many thanks to you and all the other mappers that still put in the effort!

Yeah, thanks Mailbox! I haven't played it yet either... I don't think a lot of players realize there's a new one because they keep voting for the old crappy one with the nerfed MK II badgers. Any chance we can just nix that one?

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